New Mexico Department of Health: Suicide Prevention Services

Deadline: August 30, 2017

The New Mexico Department of Health will fund youth suicide prevention services and programs. Offerors may respond to one or more of the following four categories for funding:

1. Coalition Building: The New Mexico Office of School and Adolescent Health (OSAH) is looking to build a statewide network of youth suicide prevention advocates. Funding is available for local grassroots organizations to build their local prevention efforts and then expand them into a statewide coalition. Environmental prevention strategies must be included as a core activity of the proposed services, and must specifically be addressed in the weighted evaluation factors of the proposal. Examples of environmental strategies include:

Education and advocacy initiatives that address how communities and governing bodies can collaboratively develop and implement youth suicide prevention policies and procedures.

Education and advocacy initiatives that: address the utilization of policies that govern restricted access to highly lethal means of suicide; increase access to adolescent behavioral healthcare, anti-stigma, and health access parity for behavioral health; and promote and advocate for policies to increase access and payment for behavioral health services/supports.

Promotion of collaboration among those systems involved in the lives of youth, including local juvenile justice and law enforcement, county commissions, tribal councils, city councils, public school administrators, and college and university administrators, behavioral health providers, school based and school linked service providers, and other youth-serving organizations, toward the systematic prevention of youth suicide.

Coalition-Driven projects must include the following activities in their proposal:

Intentional research-driven strategies targeting known risks for youth suicide in their communities.

Intentional research-driven strategies targeting known risks for youth suicide in their state.

A strategic plan for youth suicide awareness and prevention education that includes measurable goals and objectives.

Education and advocacy approaches that: teach how environmental approaches can change local laws, norms, and policies around the access to lethal means of suicide and other environmental strategies that reduce youth suicide; include the development of materials and resources designed to strengthen general awareness and community connectedness, public service announcements; and educational campaigns designed to reduce stigma associated with behavioral health needs.

Strategies for effective community change focused on building and maintaining a collaborative group of stakeholders committed to working together to inform, organize, and evaluate activities. Collaboration across a broad spectrum of agencies, institutions, and groups–from schools to faith-based organizations to health care associations is a way to ensure that prevention efforts are comprehensive.

2. Community Capacity and Workforce Development: OSAH’s commitment to the Zero Suicide Initiative means intensifying the focus on state, county, and community level training to prevent suicide. Community Capacity Development must focus on the promotion of individual prevention strategies that increase the ability of communities and/or schools to identify, respond to, and prevent youth suicide. Strategies should also lead to a well-trained statewide workforce of health professionals, community advocates, and/or school staff. This is accomplished through:

Statewide efforts to adopt the Zero Suicide Initiative

Completing community assets mapping that includes identification of current met and unmet needs

Workforce and youth training on early identification of signs of suicide, evidenced or promising youth suicide prevention and intervention programs, peer to peer youth suicide prevention activities, stigma reduction, and support for help-seeking behaviors

Community education on early identification of signs of suicide, research-based or promising youth suicide prevention and intervention programs, peer to peer youth suicide prevention activities, stigma reduction, and support for help-seeking individuals/families

Community Capacity Development proposals must include the following activities:

A strategic plan for workforce and youth training on suicide awareness and prevention that includes measurable goals and outcomes, including but not limited to the At-Risk Program, Question, Persuade and Refer (QPR), and/or Signs of Suicide (SOS)

Multidisciplinary and youth partnerships in programmatic development and implementation focused on establishing public/private working groups in communities to investigate ways to provide effective behavioral health support for youth in schools and the community

Active involvement in community response and recovery team development

3. Crisis Intervention and Response: OSAH is focusing on the provision of research based youth suicide prevention, intervention, and post-vention services. The primary target populations are parents and adults involved in the lives of youth, and youth ages 10-24. Funding is intended to purchase the implementation of research-based programs that have demonstrated successful outcomes with adolescents, parents, and adults involved in the lives of youth in increasing youth suicide awareness and help-seeking behaviors. The proposed project must use a specific youth focused intervention, and may also add a complementary parental or community member component. The proposed project may also use a comprehensive program that addresses both youth and their families. The youth component of the proposed activity may be community- or school-based, or both. These programs will work in the individual, family, and community domains. The proposal should also specify environmental strategies that will complement these services and that can be implemented in the school or community domain. Programmatic sustainability must be addressed.

Crisis Intervention and Response offerors must include at least one of the following:

Offer indirect services, such as suicide prevention talk and/or crisis lines, crisis response and recovery team development and implementation, and other community defined services

Develop resource linkages that include a description of how resources are utilized and identification of opportunities for increased coordination to identify, respond, and prevent youth suicide

Peer to Peer education strategies, including the integration of suicide prevention into existing service-based organizations to expand the numbers of individuals who may be reached by preventive interventions

Recovery development and implementation activities

Gatekeeper development and general suicide prevention awareness training activities

4. Advanced Clinical Training: Creation and formation of clinical training opportunities for youth-serving behavioral health professionals with a specific focus on the treatment of suicidal youth. Clinical training objectives to include culturally responsive evidence based/supported interventions for suicidal individuals with an emphasis on skills development and ongoing clinical support opportunities. Advanced clinical training opportunities to include in-depth strategies for assessment and treatment of suicide risk/associated behaviors in patients presenting in outpatient clinical practice. Training should include individual and family intervention strategies that address complex historical/community/familial trauma.

Training opportunities must include:

The creation and application of effective safety planning strategy

The incorporation of integrated care strategies and importance of comprehensive treatment planning for suicidal youth

The complex relationship dynamics of co-occurring disorders and high risk behaviors

Examples of evidence based/supported training opportunities include but are not limited to:

Solution focused brief family therapy

Dialectical behavior therapy techniques for suicidal adolescents

Cognitive behavioral treatment of adolescent suicidal behavior

Mindfulness based stress reduction

Narrative therapy

Amount: A contract award will be made. The contract will be awarded for one year and may be extended for up to three additional one-year periods.

Eligibility: An Offeror is defined as any person, corporation, or partnership who chooses to submit a proposal.

Note: The Acknowledgement of Receipt of Request For Proposals Form is due on August 9, 2017 in order for potential applicants to receive the distribution of written responses to questions and any RFP amendments. There is no pre-proposal conference scheduled.